Gunman Attempts to Preempt Viaduct Collapse with Shotgun Blasts

Historically, people have predicted that an earthquake would be the final straw that brings the shaky Alaskan Way Viaduct crumbling down. Nobody really accounted for errant shotgun shelling.

A shotgun is certainly one way to demolish a viaduct. Photo by Joe Szilagyi.

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According to an SPD blotter report, the Viaduct became the victim of just that during an odd robbery Sunday night on Alaskan Way and Union Street. Two men and a woman were reportedly “just hanging out by their Subaru” before midnight when three men approached them. That’s when this happened:

“At some point during the encounter, the female victim told officers she was chatting with the men and decided to show off a shotgun she had stowed in her car.

After showing off her gun under the viaduct in the middle of the night, the woman loaded it back into the car. That’s when one of the suspects started punching the woman, before he grabbed the shotgun out of the car and fired it into the viaduct’s concrete underbelly.”

The three men then ran off with the shotgun into the night.

Not surprisingly, follow up interviews elicited contradictory stories about what had happened, and whether or not the victims knew the suspects (even though apparently, one of the victim’s had one of the suspect’s phone numbers).